Harvard exhibit explores nature's palette

Chris Bergeron

Sunday

Mar 1, 2009 at 12:01 AMMar 1, 2009 at 1:21 AM

A gorgeous, informative exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, "The Language of Color" reveals how the animal kingdom uses colorful feathers and furs, decorative shells and scales to get lunch, make babies, confuse enemies and just plain survive.

The coral snake scares off predators by developing red and yellow bands that signal, "I'm venomous. Back off." Hunting mates, house finches seek males whose abundant red plumage advertise foraging and reproductive skills. Arriving at the breeding ground first, the female red-necked phalarope finds a mate, lays her eggs and splits, leaving dad with the hatchlings while she hunts for another guy.

A gorgeous, informative exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, "The Language of Color" reveals how the animal kingdom uses colorful feathers and furs, decorative shells and scales to get lunch, make babies, confuse enemies and just plain survive.

This hands-on exhibit explores the evolutionary and genetic strategies of animal coloration with all the fun and intimacy of a trip to Eden.

It was organized by Harvard scientists, professors Hopi Hoekstra and Jonathan Losos, who advised the museum's exhibition team. Hoekstra is the Jon Loeb associate professor on biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. A biology professor, Losos is curator of herpetology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Biology.

Elisabeth Werby, executive director of the HMNH, praised the breadth and beauty of specimens in the exhibit. "This exhibition combines a spectacular array of species and reveals a truly dazzling spectrum of colors used by animals to communicate with each other. (It) also showcases some of the cutting-edge evolutionary research going on at Harvard today."

Most objects in the display are from Harvard's voluminous collection of specimens.

Combining the best elements of a field trip and "Wild Kingdom," the exhibit helps visitors understand the environmental and evolutionary circumstances that drive animal coloration.

Simply put, Hoekstra and Losos propose a series of basic questions: What is color? How do animals see? Why do similar species have different colors?

Through arduous research, they have fashioned an exhibit that explains animal coloration in all its logic, flamboyance and trickery as a still-ongoing evolutionary response to a species' need to keep from slipping down the food chain.

"Language of Color" should satisfy visitors, including children, of virtually every interest.

For the scientifically minded, the vast range of colors found in the bland oldfield mouse to a flamboyant panther chameleon is explained in terms of photons, pigmentation, genetics and sexual bimorphism.

Kids and animal lovers should be thrilled by the sheer beauty of a huge zebra pelt, a hairy chimp ready to pounce, spectacular butterflies and videos of sea creatures strutting their stuff in submarine mating dances.

For lovers of sheer beauty, could even Monet duplicate the subtle greens in the feathers of the Central American bird known as the resplendent quetzall?

The questions appear simple: Why do zebras have stripes? Why would non-toxic butterflies mimic the camouflage patterns of their toxic cousins?

But the answers reveal the elegantly logical yet profound dance of life.

When it comes to dressing for the occasion, animals seem smarter and trickier than their human counterparts.

Just as twins separated at birth dress differently for their respective habitats, oldfield mice of central Florida, which live in fields, are brown on top, gray underneath and have striped tails. Since moving to white sandy beaches, Santa Rosa Island beach mice have developed a natural camouflage through small genetic mutations that render them so pale the owls and hawks that hunt them can't see them.

When precise answers aren't available, the exhibit lets viewers dwell on the natural wonder of things.

Though scientists concur zebras' stripes are crucial to their survival, they disagree whether the brilliant black-and-white coloration evolved to confuse lions, individualize them for mates or, more recently, discourage tsetse flies.

And while the exhibit makes few direct comparisons between the guiding principles of animal and human coloration, its just a small leap from the mating dance of squid and cuttlefish to whatever embarrassing gyrations we undertook at high school proms and college mixers.

Though it might be speculative science, it's fun to see whether the guiding principles of animation coloration can be applied to fashion and dating.

"The Language of Color" is fun, informative and gorgeous.

And visitors just might acquire a new humility once they realize sometimes they're no smarter than tsetse flies when it comes to finding their next meal or mate.

THE ESSENTIALS:

The Harvard Museum of Natural History is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 26 Oxford St., Cambridge. "Language of Color" runs through Sept. 6.

Admission is $9 adults, $7 seniors and $6 ages 3-18.

Special events:

- March 14, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Bugfest Family Festival

- March 5, 6 p.m.: Harvard faculty lecture on evolution

For more information, call 617-495-3045 or go to www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

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